F A N T A S T I C P R E S E N T A
El movimiento de mujeres nació de una explosión, un contagio de decir la verdad.
[mujeres cantando] ¡La hermandad es poderosa! ¡Únete a nosotros ahora!
Mujeres, todas las minorías,
Todos debemos ponernos de pie juntos y decir: "No más".
Si una persona cuenta su historia, eso permite que otras personas digan:
"No soy solo yo. Esto le está sucediendo a otras personas".
Eso puede transformar todo.
- [mujer 1] Querida Gloria ... - [mujer 2] Querida Gloria ...
Querida Gloria
me diste el coraje de defender y luchar por las mujeres.
Su trabajo sentó las bases para aquellos de nosotros que queremos algo más de la vida.
de lo que era tradicional y esperado.
Como una joven mexicana, tus palabras me dieron un lugar en este movimiento.
[Steinem] Puedo leer estas cartas personales, políticas y maravillosas.
Tengo suerte de ser parte de un movimiento.
eso significa lo mismo para mí que para todos los demás.
Para mí está perfectamente claro que solo los movimientos cambian el mundo.
Una persona no hace eso.
Es un contagio.
Querida Gloria ...
- [mujer 1] Querida Gloria ... - [mujer 2] Querida Gloria ...
- [mujer 3] Querida Gloria ... - [mujer 4] Querida Gloria ...
Todos los días de mi vida, hago lo que amo.
Creo que, como muchas mujeres,
Estoy viviendo la vida no vivida de mi madre.
Pasé gran parte de mi infancia cuidando a mi madre, que era inválida.
Estaba muy deprimida y tenía lo que entonces se llamaba un ataque de nervios.
Estuvo en un sanatorio durante uno o dos años.
y me enganché con una forma temprana de tranquilizante.
La culpé por la vida que estaba viviendo cuando la conocí.
Me tomó un tiempo darme cuenta de lo que había renunciado.
Ella había sido pionera y periodista mucho antes de que yo naciera.
Primero había escrito bajo el nombre de un hombre. De lo contrario, no podría ser publicada.
Y luego se convirtió en el editor dominical de Toledo Blade,
que era un periódico de una gran ciudad, que era extraordinario.
Ella fue una verdadera pionera y le encantó.
Ella lo adoraba.
Pero fue una época en la que se esperaba que las mujeres se quedaran en casa para criar familias.
Entonces, ella dejó lo que amaba.
Creo que su espíritu estaba roto.
Ella debería haber podido vivir su propia vida.
Era la política de la vida. No fue su culpa.
No cambiaría mi infancia, no creo, porque ...
me da fuerza
Y me hizo sentir bien al tratar de cambiar el mundo,
en lugar de tratar de ajustarse a ella.
[Steinem] Fui a la universidad y me encantó.
Me interesé infinitamente en todo en el mundo.
Después de la universidad, hubo una suposición generalizada
que te casarías y tendrías hijos.
Haz todo lo que se suponía que debíamos hacer.
Pero no quería llevar esa vida.
Yo quería ser un escritor,
así que escapé a Nueva York y me convertí en periodista.
No conocía a ninguna mujer que se ganara la vida escribiendo,
así que no sabía cuánto duraría.
Había mucha discriminación contra las mujeres.
No pude obtener el mismo salario, no pude conseguir un apartamento,
fue enviado a tomar café de las reuniones editoriales.
Yo era escritor independiente.
Contribuí a revistas de mujeres, a Glamour, al Ladies 'Home Journal.
Escribí para la revista Sunday del New York Times.
Quería escribir sobre los temas políticos que me interesaban.
Pero los temas serios estaban reservados para los hombres.
Al mismo tiempo, estaba dentro del movimiento contra la guerra de Vietnam.
Estaba marchando, trabajando para políticos.
Pero mi activismo fue simplemente separado de mi escritura.
No pude integrarlo en lo que estaba haciendo.
[gritos indistintos]
[locutor] La primavera pasada, César Chávez, un organizador sindical mexicano-estadounidense,
lideró con éxito la primera huelga de trabajadores agrícolas de Estados Unidos
entre los trabajadores mexicanos de la uva en California.
[Steinem] Había estado trabajando para César Chávez y los trabajadores agrícolas,
tratando de ayudar y recaudar dinero para el sindicato.
César había organizado una muy importante Marcha de los Pobres para Calexico.
Pero estaba sucediendo en la oscuridad. No había reporteros allí.
Tengo senadores y gente de cine para ir.
Entonces eso atrajo a la prensa.
[hablando español]
[Steinem] The migrant workers were all living in poverty and very bad conditions.
And it was especially difficult for the women
because they were also subject to sexual harassment and assault in the fields.
They had their children to look after.
They had the least power.
So, I began to raise money and tried to be supportive directly to the women.
I think I was relating to those women.
Their situation was not profoundly different from that of other women.
Even though the poverty was so severe,
it was just an exaggerated version of that condition.
And I realized that our causes are linked.
Dear Gloria, I was born in a small town in Mexico.
When I was young, my mother left my father
and fled the traditional machismo ideals of her community.
My mother bravely swam across the Rio Grande,
seeking a new life in the United States and later, sent for my sister and me.
We joined her in Texas. All of us were undocumented immigrants.
Since my mom didn't speak any English, she ended up working as a maid,
even though she'd been a teacher in Mexico.
"I remember her employers talking down to her and treating her like she was stupid."
Because she couldn't understand them.
My mom struggled to support us as a housekeeper.
We were frequently homeless and forced to live in women's shelters.
I hoped and prayed my life would get better.
One day, during high school, a guest speaker came to my English class.
She gave a talk on inspirational women.
"And she told us about you, Gloria."
In my community, women got married and had kids at 20 years old.
I'd never known anyone who made a career out of thinking and writing.
"I started spending lunch periods in the library so I could read your books."
The more I read, the more I felt you were speaking directly to me.
You spent years fighting alongside immigrant workers,
fighting with women like my mother.
You inspired me to have bigger ambitions.
You made me realize my thoughts were important enough to be heard.
"I decided I was going to get my PhD."
I'm now in my fifth year of my PhD program.
My work focuses on intersectionality and immigration.
"I want to be the Gloria for my community."
And show how strong immigrant women and women of color can be.
[Steinem] Makes you cry.
In 1968, Clay Felker, who was a wonderful editor,
gathered together a group of writers to start New York magazine,
which was the first of the big-city magazines.
And because I was part of that group, they let me name the departments.
So I gave myself a political column called "The City Politic."
That was the first time I could really write about everything of interest.
I would like to show you the picture of a two-day-old infant.
The state legislature here in New York were holding a hearing about abortion,
which was then completely illegal in New York State.
And they were trying to decide whether to liberalize the state abortion laws.
But the legislators had invited 14 men and one nun to testify.
[chuckles] So, some pioneers in the women's movement,
in a church downtown, in the basement of the church said,
"No, wait a minute. Let's hear from women who have really had this experience."
[woman] Women are suffering, and you know
maybe men should start analyzing it
from that angle for a change.
[crowd applauding]
[Steinem] So, I sat there as a reporter for New York magazine
listening to women tell their stories
of having to seek an illegal, dangerous abortion.
[woman 2] You're blindfolded
and taken some place
you don't know where.
You're not given an anesthetic,
the instruments
are not even sterilized.
You wind up with an infection,
you could wind up never being able to have children.
[Steinem] It was the first time in my life I had ever heard women telling the truth
about something that only happened to women.
Doing it in public. Taking it seriously.
And that was a revelation.
I also had had an abortion.
I was 22.
I had just graduated from college.
When I realized I was pregnant, I was in London.
And I really didn't know what to do.
You know, should I, literally, throw myself down the stairs.
I really was desperate.
And then I learned that it was possible to get an abortion in England
if you found a doctor who was willing to say that your life was at stake.
So, I asked the doctor if he would sign something
saying this was a threat to my life, though it was not.
He paused for a moment and then said, "I will if you promise me two things."
First, if I didn't tell anyone his name.
And if I promised to do what I wanted to do with my life.
I had never talked about it.
It was illegal. It was secret.
Listening to women tell their stories
in the basement of the church was a revelation.
It was crazy that we had not been able to do that before.
Why? Since one in three American women, even then, had had an abortion.
Why was it illegal?
It began to make me understand.
We are not crazy. The system is crazy.
When we tap into shared experience, the world cracks open, you know.
When I wrote about it in New York magazine,
I wrote about the underground feminist movement
because it was the communal excitement of it
that I sensed in that room.
My male colleagues at New York magazine,
one by one kind of took me aside and said,
"Don't get involved with these crazy women.
You've worked hard to be taken seriously."
But it was too late. I already was one of those crazy women.
-What do we want? -Equality!
-When do we want it? -Now!
[Steinem] The women's movement was just beginning.
It was irresistible and contagious.
[chanting] Free our sisters, free ourselves! Power to all women!
We've been much too law-abiding and too docile for too long,
but I think that period is about over.
The whole point was to give women a choice.
That we were able to use our own talents and do what we wanted.
We want to reach out to every woman whose abilities have been wasted
by the second-class, subservient, underpaid or powerless positions
to which female human beings are consigned.
There was a hunger to know about the women's movement
in many other states in the country where there was less access.
But there was no national publication for women, owned and controlled by women.
McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, they were definitely male-owned and male-edited.
We needed to start our own magazine.
In the process of fundraising, we went to a lot of different people.
Steinem. S-T-E-I-N-E-M.
But there was not a lot of faith that a feminist magazine was needed even,
much less that it could be successful.
I see. All right.
Fortunately, Clay Felker, who was the editor of New York magazine,
needed something special for the year-end double issue.
So, he published a portion of our first issue in New York magazine.
We put on the cover "spring." It was January.
We didn't want to embarrass the movement by just lying there on the newsstands.
[announcer] Today, a new magazine is published, called M-S, or Ms.
Someone called and said, "I can't find the magazine on the newsstands."
And I called New York, you know, feeling it hadn't been distributed
and discovered that actually it had been, but it had sold out.
It felt wonderful, like a contagion.
It was as if we had put a note in a bottle and sent it out into the ocean.
[chuckles] And from all the continents around the world, got a response.
It was amazing.
[woman] Dear Gloria, I was born in 1954.
Women at that time were expected to stay home to raise families
and support their husbands.
"As the oldest girl in my family of eight,
I was responsible for helping my mother take care of my siblings."
This was to prepare me for my ultimate role as wife and mother,
since at the time, there were no other options.
I married at the tender age of 21 and had two children by the time I was 25.
"I was on a path identical to my mother's and feeling completely hemmed in."
I always loved chemistry, math and physics.
And after my daughters were born,
I realized that I could pursue an even bigger dream:
medical school.
When I told my husband, he expected me to stay home with the children,
a common theme of multiple conversations.
I needed something to help me withstand the constant attacks on my dreams.
"I had been reading Ms. magazine for several years,
but suddenly, your words took on a new importance in my life."
[woman reading] In Ms. magazine, I read stories of strong women
fighting for more than a life of domesticity.
I took strength from your writing. I no longer felt alone.
And I knew I couldn't give up on my aspirations.
I stood my ground at the cost of my marriage.
We divorced, but I carried on with my education,
and I made it through medical school.
I still have a photo of myself studying for medical exams
with an infant and a toddler.
I went on to own my own practice and to do the work I love, while raising a family.
Each day at work, I remember that opportunities like this
are here because of women like you.
Gloria, your words allowed me to claim my voice and choose my own destiny.
You empowered me.
That's what a movement is.
Just a kind of contagion of dreams from woman to woman to woman.
[male announcer] I humbly admit that I was wrong when I predicted that Ms.,
the magazine of women's liberation, would fold after five or fewer issues.
Issue seven is now on the stands.
In an era when magazines founded and led by men are dying like flies,
Ms. has every right to feel proud.
Our goal was to cover a lot of subjects that other women's magazines rarely did.
The other women's magazines were not supposed to do controversial things
and scare off advertisers.
It hasn't been very long since women couldn't even get divorced
or have an affair in the pages of a women's magazine.
Or swear or be poor or be black.
There just wasn't very much truth.
That's basically what we want this to be,
a place where women can get advice and tell the truth.
In our first issue, we asked women if they would sign a petition saying,
"We have had abortions, and we demand an end
to the criminalization of this procedure
that should be safe and an individual choice."
Obviously, this petition of truth-telling was very important,
so of course I was going to be part of it too.
We were flooded with letters saying, "At last I know I'm not alone.
Thank you so much. Here's my story."
There was a great outpouring.
Abortion was still completely illegal in many states in this country
even though it was supported in public opinion polls by the majority.
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Women were being injured and killed.
[female protester] Free abortion on demand!
There was a great explosion of energy around the legalization of abortion,
so we ran with it.
We are here to announce our determination to stand together and to work together
until the right to safe, legal abortion becomes a right recognized by law
in every state of this country.
We are here to make known the unity of women behind the demand
that abortion be a woman's right to choose.
We will stand together to win and to defend that right.
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court today legalized abortions.
The majority, in cases from Texas and Georgia,
said that the decision to end a pregnancy during the first three months
belongs to the woman and her doctor, not the government.
[Steinem] It was an incredible, amazing feeling.
This was a decision that had everything to do
with women's health, women's whole lives.
There's no such thing as democracy unless we have authority,
men and women, over our own physical bodies.
Dear Gloria, I was in college when I attended the vigil
of a woman named Savita Halappanavar.
Savita died because of the Eighth Amendment,
a clause in the Irish Constitution,
which recognized the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn
and resulted in abortion being illegal in almost all circumstances.
Thirty-one-year-old Savita Halappanavar was rushed to hospital,
experiencing a miscarriage, but doctors wouldn't abort the baby.
And Savita then died a few days later.
Savita's death was the rallying cry for me and so many other Irish women.
[women chanting] Never again! Never again!
[announcer] Now, the Irish government
has agreed to hold a referendum at the end of May
on whether to reform the country's near total ban on abortion.
[announcer] It's basically a yes or no question,
whether or not voters want to repeal the Eighth Amendment.
I wanted to help Irish women
and make the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment visible.
At this point, I wasn't sure how.
After the night of Savita's vigil,
I came across a photo of you wearing a shirt that said, "I had an abortion."
"That simple gesture of sharing your own story was powerful."
I thought to myself, "I must help," and this was eventually gonna be it.
For an issue shrouded in secrecy,
we needed a way to help start the national conversation.
Printing sweatshirts that said "repeal"
was my way of speaking out for women who couldn't.
Within weeks, we were getting orders not just from Ireland,
but from all around the world.
We raised vital funds for the Irish abortion rights campaign.
We were up against insurmountable obstacles.
Religious dogma, coupled with the historical shaming of women
wanting to have agency over their own bodies.
But this was about more than abortion.
It was about our humanity, our autonomy and our identity
in the eyes of the state.
In May of 2018, the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment was held.
"And it passed by a majority of 66.4% of the population."
[crowd cheering]
[chanting] Yes! Yes! Yes!
[announcer] Ireland has spoken with a clear, strong voice.
The referendum had drawn the biggest youth vote in Irish history.
We stood together as a nation
and finally listened to women's lived realities without judgment,
just as you, Gloria, have done for decades.
"Now, women across Ireland will no longer have to live in the shadows."
And have access to safe and legal abortion in their own home.
[chanting] Yes, we did! Yes, we did!
Anna, I thank you for writing this because we need inspiration in my own country.
[announcer] Thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators marched to the Capitol.
They want a constitutional amendment outlawing abortions.
We do not negotiate.
We tell them they must stop killing babies!
[Steinem] When Roe v. Wade passed, it seemed just logical and right.
And I celebrated,
but I didn't yet understand how enormous the backlash would be.
[announcer] The anti-abortion forces are on a roll.
Louisiana, Utah, Pennsylvania and Guam have all passed anti-abortion laws.
Will we vote for any politician who opposes reproductive freedom?
[crowd] No!
-Will we win? -Yes!
[chanting] Not the church, not the state, women will decide our fate.
[announcer] As marchers poured down Pennsylvania Avenue,
organizers said it was a bigger turnout than they had hoped for.
[Steinem] We are now the majority.
But the people who are now in the minority feel deprived of the old hierarchy,
of the old male privilege or race privilege or class privilege.
And they're in backlash.
[announcer] The most restrictive abortion law in America
was signed this week in Alabama,
which will bar abortions, even in the cases of rape and incest.
[man] A lot of states have passed bills
that also seem to be at odds with Roe v. Wade.
This is an effort to get the Supreme Court to take up Roe v. Wade again.
Maybe overturn it.
I don't know what's gonna happen, but the young women today definitely give me hope
because they are fighting for their rights and they just expect it.
[chanting] Pro-life, that's a lie! You don't care if women die!
Vote no now!
We are seeing this wave of activism like I've never seen before in my life.
[chanting] Come on, come on and join the fight! Abortion is a person's right!
I always say to young women, "I'm so grateful to you.
I feel like I just had to wait for some of my friends to be born."
Dear Gloria, I grew up in Guangzhou, China,
where I was raised by my single mother and my grandmother.
Valuing boys over girls is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture.
In school, my teachers will tell us that women aren't good at math
and that girls should be smart but also quiet.
I didn't believe any of that was true,
but I didn't know how to talk about what I was experiencing.
When I was 16, my mom and I moved to San Francisco, California.
In China, people rarely talked about feminism.
"But suddenly, I was in the middle of a struggle to smash the patriarchy."
[announcer] Just off the south lawn of the White House,
a huge crowd gathered for the Women's March on Washington.
We are here and around the world for a deep democracy
that says we will not be quiet, we will not be controlled.
God may be in the details, but the goddess is in connections.
[woman] This is when I discovered you and your work, Gloria.
The issues you've been fighting for your entire life
seem even more relevant today.
Make sure you introduce yourselves to each other
and decide what we're gonna do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
And we're never turning back.
You inspire me to do more than talk about feminism,
but to be an active part of the movement, to assertively make history.
I decided to start a women's empowerment club at school.
We not only met regularly to discuss ways to fight for gender equality
but would also attend women's marches to make sure our voices were heard.
[man chanting] Show me what democracy looks like!
[women chanting] This is what democracy looks like!
One day, I hope to bring what I've learned from you
and the feminist movement back to China.
Quiero abrir las mentes al empoderamiento femenino en todas partes.
Jialin, lo dejas muy claro.
El movimiento de mujeres es un movimiento global.
La gente nos pregunta: "¿A quién le estás pasando la antorcha?"
¿Correcto?
No lo estoy pasando. Lo estoy guardando. Muchas gracias.
[multitud riendo]
Y lo estoy usando para encender las antorchas de otras personas.
El futuro del feminismo es lo que tú y yo lo hacemos.
Representamos a la mayoría.
Estamos aquí y no nos vamos a rendir ni a conformarnos.
Gloria, gracias por mostrarme cómo ser valiente.
por decirme que mi voz importa.
Sin sus esfuerzos, puede que no me haya sentido empoderado para seguir mis sueños.
Hablaste en contra de las injusticias en todo el mundo.
Me inspiraste a mí y a muchos otros a hacer lo mismo.
Todos tenemos un papel que desempeñar.
Aquellos de nosotros que somos mayores podemos traer esperanza porque recordamos cuando era peor.
[mujeres cantando] ¡Mi cuerpo, mi elección!
[hombres cantando] ¡Su cuerpo, su elección!
¡Mi cuerpo, mi elección!
[Steinem] Aquellos de nosotros que somos más jóvenes traemos ira,
lo cual es precioso porque saben que debería ser mejor.
Depende de todos nosotros.
Gracias Gloria por mostrarme el camino. Anna
No sé dónde estaría hoy sin ti.
Sinceramente, Zelma.
Gracias Gloria Jialin
Con gran admiración y profundo aprecio. Catherine